Risāla fī al-Ḥisāb: Ḥasan al-Makkī’s Treatise on Arithmetic of Inheritance which Ascribed to ʿAllāma Ḥillī

The jurisprudence in Islamic civilization is related to mathematics by employing the arithmetic needed for the solution of the inheritance problems. This issue is mainly discussed as a section titled "Book of Inheritance" (Kitāb al-Farāʾiḍ or Kitāb al-Mīrāṯ) in the standard jurisprudential Books, but there are also some independent treatises on the subject. In this paper, we have edited and commented on of these independent treatises, titled Risālat fī al-Ḥisāb, which is wrongly attributed to Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Ḥasan bin Yūsuf bin ʿAli bin al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī, also known as al-Allamah al-Ḥillī. The two manuscripts of this treatise are the manuscript number 1148/2 in Astan Qods Library and the manuscript number 393/11 in Fazil Khansari Library. In this paper, this attribution is rejected based on three evidence: firstly, the title of the treatise is not mentioned among the two major lists of Allamah al-Ḥillī's works; secondly the jurisprudential content of the treatise attributes to Sunni jurisprudence, hence it could not be of Allamah al-Ḥillī, one of the prominent Shiite scholars. Thirdly, the name of the author is already mentioned in the text as Ḥasan al-Makkī and Allamah al-Ḥillī is not known by this name. It is possible that Hassan ibn Muḥammad, known as Qāzī Ḥasan al-Makkī (11/17 century), is the author of the treatise. The treatise begins with a basic introduction to arithmetic and then continues with jurisprudential subjects and rules. The main problem this knowledge is known as "the arithmetic of inheritance" is to calculate the shares of all heirs only in integer numbers, this process is called "Taṣḥīḥ". Each section of the treatise is ended with some examples. In this paper also we have studied the life of the 393/11 in Fazil Khansari Library's scribe, ʿlī Qolī ībn Himmat ʿlī Sarābī, on the basis of the evidence he had provided himself in the colophons of the treatises.